Growing boycott of Eric Holder media meetings

Several news organizations have announced they will not attend this week’s off the record meetings with Attorney General Eric Holder unless the sit-downs are conducted on the record.

CNN, Fox News, CBS News, Reuters, NBC News and McClatchy on Thursday joined The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Huffington Post in refusing to go to one of the Department of Justice’s off the record sessions about the department’s handling of investigations into journalists. POLITICO, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Bloomberg News, USA Today and the bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, have announced that they will attend the off the record meetings, which are being held to discuss changes to the Justice Department’s guidelines for subpoenas of reporters.

QUIZ: How well do you know Eric Holder?

CBS News spokesperson Sonya McNair said CBS News will not attend, but would consider an on the record conversation.

“CBS News does not plan to participate in the off-the-record meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder,” McNair said in a statement to POLITICO. “We would be willing to consider an on-the-record discussion.”

And later Thursday, an NBC News spokesperson said the network “declines to participate in an off the record meeting on this issue.”

Fox News said it was invited to attend Friday’s session, but announced on Thursday the network will not attend if it remains off the record.

Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief Jerry Seib, meanwhile, will be attending a session, a Journal spokesperson confirmed Thursday. Los Angeles Times spokesperson Nancy Sullivan also confirmed to POLITICO that David Lauter, the Washington bureau chief for the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, will attend a meeting.

The meetings come in the wake of the news the department seized the phone records of several AP reporters and also targeted Fox News’ James Rosen in a separate investigation, and will be part of President Barack Obama’s announced review of the department’s existing guidelines governing investigations involving reporters.

The New York Times, the AP and the Huffington Post have all said they will not attend a session unless they are moved to be on the record. The New York Times’ executive editor Jill Abramson said on Wednesday the paper would not be at a meeting.

“We will not be attending the session at DOJ. It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general. Our Washington bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak investigations at this time,” the Times’ executive editor Jill Abramson said in a statement.

And AP spokesperson Erin Madigan said “if it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter.”